Why people dont play on hardcore?

The Archnemesis HC ladder shows 15K characters reaching level 53 so far.
The SSFHC ladder shows 15K characters reaching level 48.

That's a total of 30K and doesn't include nearly everyone who is playing. That's quite a few players.

If you really want a dead league, that would be perm HC.

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Hi

someone made me same question you made in this post, there is a long list for me why not playing HC in this game.

starting with 1 hit killing, something i never saw in all my time life playing in any game. many times in PoE you died and you dont even know why, you simply take a hit from something and die. it is a weakness this game have for long time.

for sure my other reasons i can't say here, because last time i spoke about a serious big issue in game, GGG suspended my Acc for 3 days, "to minimize the problem".

the game could be far better experience without this 1 hit killing.

netcode is kinda ehhhh and the game really isn't designed well with it's damage spikes.

Well I play HC Trade occasionally if I don't feel like playing SSF SC.

Last time was in Scourge and I had a blast again. HC felt great and Scourge made it really rewarding to build a durable character. Also trade made it possible to play something different from the usual SSF stuff. (I was able to theorycraft around Shavs low life for example)
But as others have said before, the game changed so much in the last couple of years, that HC has become very niche.

When I decide to play HC, I basically give up on doing any hard endgame bosses that league. I'll do Shaper, Elder and Sirus but that's about it.
I don't have the reactions of my teens anymore and I don't have enough time to reroll 20 characters per league if I mess up boss mechanics.

Other than that, one shots in maps can be avoided with being careful what to run. U can't juice up maps like u do in SC. If u know ur characters limits, u shouldn't get one shot.

That said, I still prefer SSF SC nowadays, because it's much more chill and I can experience every endgame mechanic if I want to, instead of locking myself out of it beforehand.

I tried HC once. Got to lvl 87 on my very first attempt in SSF. Veritania spawned with a tormented spirit. I knew I should have logged but I really didn't want to regrind the maps just because of the spirit so I fought her against my intuition and better judgement and paid for it. Most frustrating part was that I knew beforehand that I should have logged but because how tedious the grind was I didn't. The ice shards rolled crit and seeing that is how it works in poe each hit was crit.

Summed up HC for me really. Zero risk 99% of the time but 1% of the game is near unavoidable death.

I'm basically HC player only (never played SC of PoE)

Like there are other factors to count in:
1) Constant reharsh and destruction of builds - this is like putting very majority of players off the HC. You just need to somehow perfect the knowledge of your build. Then GGG nerfs everything, destroys your build and you are at point zero.
2) Not well tested - for example this league I died on T4 map with insubstantial mods - 1 shot through 4.8K HP and 79% fire res - reason: DD of single killed archnemesis mob I didn't think it can kill me (I saw DD animation). This kind of bullshit just cannot happen on game which thinks about HC seriously.
3) Login macro - I think this option should be removed from game completely and logout time set to like 6-8 seconds (in any situation). As much as people are thinking it's good to be able to log out, it for most occassions just only veils how bad the situation with random deaths is. It can very well be seen on no logout macro challenge from last league where even pros have been dying on this mode heavily.

3)builds with better insight

Hahaha. U mean pick every life node possible? No ty

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Impiousbe wrote:

I tried HC once. Got to lvl 87 on my very first attempt in SSF. Veritania spawned with a tormented spirit. I knew I should have logged but I really didn't want to regrind the maps just because of the spirit so I fought her against my intuition and better judgement and paid for it.

this is honestly what HC is about though, we all choose to fight and sometimes you win sometimes you lose :p

If you never take the risk I think you are probably too attached to your character for HC, if you always take risks you aren't attached enough ^^ its a happy balance between the two.

I don't like leveling.